


Easy Listening

by Kanexan



Series: Undertale Secret Santa-Winter, 2018 [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, No Angst, Other, Papyrus and Grillby Don't Do Much, Shipping, Undertale Secret Santa-Winter 2018, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanexan/pseuds/Kanexan
Summary: Ghosts and skeletons, a match made in heaven!





	Easy Listening

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Secret Santa gift for Elsa12TMNT. Hope you enjoy it, Elsa! I had a blast writing it; thanks for giving me such an interesting prompt!

Snow fell lightly, drifting in through the open window and creating delicate patterns of white on the still-packed boxes and the odd item Sans had actually bothered to unpack. A decent-sized drift of white flakes was forming on the top of a ginormous mass of covers and comforters, huddled in the center of a worn-out mattress on the floor and making muffled snoring sounds. 

On top of the boxes covering the room's sole other piece of furniture, a cheap wood desk that had seen better days, the shrill ringing of an alarm clock presented an unwelcome interruption to the scene. The mass of covers stopped snoring and gave a loud groan, before rolling over and seemingly trying to bury itself in the bed and corner of the room, as if it could make the clock go away by ignoring it hard enough. Loud, forced snoring filled the room, in defiance of the alarm.

After three minutes of this, Sans decided to give up the fight. "alright, alright, fine. i'll get up already." he said, as he pulled the covers off and stood up on the cold, wet wooden floor. The cold of the melting snow and slush instantly jolted him to being fully awake. "what the... why the hell's my window open? i didn't even know it  _could_ open."

He trudged through the frigid puddle of water to the window and slammed it shut with both hands, then grabbed the alarm clock and shut off the incessant alarm. He hadn't remembered setting it, either. "it's... tuesday, i think. improv comedy night with toriel is wednesday. the king's at a summit. papyrus has a training thing with undyne. alphys doesn't need me today, not after all the work last night..."

Still confused and somewhat lost in thought, he turned the alarm over to find a sticky note covered in Papyrus's distinctive handwriting on the back side.

"SANS, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN YOU HAVE WOKEN UP. CONGRATULATIONS! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE TAKEN IT UPON MYSELF AS YOUR CARING BROTHER TO ENSURE THAT YOU GET UP IN TIME! THAT'S WHY I SET THIS ALARM FOR YOU, AND ALSO OPENED YOUR WINDOW TO LET THE COLD WAKE YOU! IN THE UNFORTUNATE AND, ACCORDING TO THE SMILEY HUMAN ON CHANNEL 8, HIGHLY UNLIKELY EVENT OF IT SNOWING TODAY, I APOLOGIZE. HOWEVER, I HAD TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU, MY FAVORITE BROTHER, WOKE UP IN TIME TO PREPARE FOR YOUR"

Papyrus had run out of room on the note.

"heh, well then."

Shrugging, Sans set the alarm back on top of its perch on the boxes covering his desk. He gave a last look at the mattress; he could just try and go back to sleep... but the blankets were getting wet from the melting snow. He might as well get around to doing... well, he'd find something or other to do. Maybe he'd remember why he was supposed to get up, while he was at it.

After pulling on his favorite hoodie–or at least the only hoodie he'd bothered to unpack in the month since the two had moved to this house on the Surface–he made his way down the stairs and to the kitchen. He took a quick look into the fridge and pantry, and decided on his usual meal: ketchup. Papyrus had made him try some other foods once they reached the Surface, but for the most part the mainstay of his diet was still the tangy tomato topping.

This time, he decided to give it a bit more flair; the first meal of the day was the most important, after all, even if it would be a stretch to call it breakfast. Sans pulled one of the cereal boxes and a bowl out of the cabinet next to the fridge, sat down at the skeletons' small table, and poured himself a nice bowl of corn flakes and ketchup. With a quiet chuckle to himself, he remembered how Napstablook had reacted the first time they saw him eat the dish: he hadn't known ghosts could retch, but somehow they had done it. He still liked to tease the ghost about it, but he hadn't eaten ketchup with corn flakes again while they were around. 

Sans took the first couple bites of crispy corn and tomato gloop goodness, and then paused.

Something was... he was forgetting something. This wasn't just another case of déjà vu; when Frisk reset, there were identifiers that Sans could use to tell he'd reloaded. None of them were present now.

And then it hit him.

Quickly, he looked at the clock. 5:45... Crap, he was 10-no, _15_ minutes late! Hurriedly, he dumped the bowl in the sink and snapped his fingers. Time shuddered, and then he found himself right outside Grillby's.

Right in front of a very rushed-looking ghost; it looked like Napstablook was also in a hurry! A torrent of words poured out of the two of them, mixing together and becoming near-unintelligible. "sorry..."—"i'm late again, but..."—"...muffet had us all up really late for practice and i just..."—"...working on the magipower-electricity project with alphys all night..."—"and i forgot to charge my phone so the alarm..."—"so tired i didn't set it, and papyrus tried but..." "...and i was gonna wear my hat but it was too late... sorry..."

As they both reached a pause in their rapid-fire apologies, Sans began to process what Napstablook had been saying. He started to chuckle, and then was wrapped up in a full-blown belly laugh. Napstablook joined him, quietly at first but then louder and warmer as Sans kept laughing. Before long, they were both gasping and on the edge of tears as the laughs started to taper off.

"of  _course_ we were both late! oh man, napsta, that's just too perfect!" Sans said, still laughing slightly.

"i guess we really are a good match... we're even equally lazy!" they responded, mirth warming their often listless tone.

"do you wanna go inside now? i'm chilled to the bone standing out here in the snow." Sans said.

"hey, i thought you  _liked_ chill things..." Napstablook joked as the two went nto the restaurant.

"sure i do. soft music, lying around, you... i just don't like it when it's  _cold_ chill."

"aww... you're so sweet, napsta." The skeleton said, as he perched on one of the bar stools. Ah... even having moved to the Surface, Grillby's still looked just the same as it had ever been to Sans. Nice and warm, full of good food and good laughs. What better place to have a date at?

"so, whaddaya wanna eat?" he asked, surveying the menu even though he knew it by heart.

'Sitting' on a stool next to Sans, Napstablook thought for a second and then replied, "hmm... i'd kinda like a burger, but i'm not feeling up to a whole one right now... grillby makes really big burgers..."

"heh, well, i'm not exactly starving myself. started to eat before we got here."

"oh god, was it that terrible thing you do with the corn flakes and ketchup again?" Despite not having skin, Sans somehow managed to blush under the ghost's teasing accusations. They groaned. "now i get why i'm always the one ordering... well, if we're both not that hungry... should we split one?"

"sure. extra ketchup, though."

Napstablook laughed and groaned "of course..." as they made the order to Grillby. One burger to share, with fries and extra ketchup.

The food came quickly, and as they ate, the two kept talking. "so," Sans said, as he took a big bite of burger, "we've both been pretty busy, huh? how's the band doing now that muffet's you guys' manager?"

"oh... it's going alright..." Napstablook said. They paused for a bit, and then continued talking. "she's... pretty intense about the managing thing. we've been practicing pretty much every night for that big christmas concert and album thing she wants us to have... apparently it's a big deal? i dunno... i just do the keyboard. the real big showrunners are mettaton and muffet... i think they're having some kind of meeting tonight, too... but mettaton said i didn't have to be there. that's pretty much it for me... what have you been doing? i heard you've been working a lot with alphys..."

"yeah, we've been working on a few projects together. the real big one right now is figuring out how to make magical electricity compatible with human tech. it's pretty complicated, but we're makin' headway. lots more resources available here on the surface; we don't just have to use garbage and whatever we can mine out of the mountain anymore. the humans are helping out too; alphys says they've pretty much taken the core over with all the research they're doing on it. hey, it's not like we're using it right now, after all." Sans said, pausing between sentences to continue eating.

They kept talking as they ate, wheeling from Sans' work with Alphys and the human scientists to Napstablook's latest music, from Papyrus training for the Guard to Mettaton working on a new tour. Even as the burger disappeared and the fries vanished one-by-one, never to be seen again, the two kept chatting along, moving from work and what was happening with each other onto other subjects. Eventually, as the clock ticked away and the other patrons had all long-since left, they were interrupted when Grillby tapped on the table, holding the bill. If he was irritated at how late they'd stayed, it didn't show on his face, but he'd already put up all the chairs and cleaned up for the night; it was clear that he'd given the two as long as he could.

"alright, grillby, we'll clear out. sorry for keepin' ya up late... hope you weren't burning the midnight oil on our account."

If Grillby was amused, he gave no indication of it. A fiery finger pointed to the bill again.

"what, too late for puns?" Sans asked, half-jokingly. "ah, fine. just put it on my tab, grillby. i'll pay it off tomorrow."

As the flame sprite started cleaning off their area of the bar the two walked out of the restaurant and into the cold, snowy night.

"this was really nice, sans... can we do it again next week...? maybe after the concert...?" Napstablook asked, shivering slightly in the cold wind.

"sure thing. me an' paps are already gonna be there, we can just head backstage after it's all done. papyrus'd love to get mettaton's autograph, and i can meet up with you for a date night. grillby's again?"

",,,sure... that sounds nice... and thanks again for tonight, i really enjoyed it..." The ghost said with a shy smile.

Sans bent over and gave the ghost a quick smooch on the cheek. "hey, how 'bout i walk you to your house, napsta?"

 "sure... that sounds nice..." they said, blushing somehow despite being incorporeal.

He took a few steps away from Grillby's, and gestured to Napstablook.

"c'mon, i know a shortcut..."


End file.
